AS-SSD Benchmark uses compressed data, so sequential file transfer speeds are reported lower than with other tools using uncompressed data. For this reason, we will concentrate on the operational IOPS performance in this section.

Shown below are the results for three different high-capacity Seagate disk drives. The first is our featured product, the 4TB Seagate Desktop HDD ST4000DM000 (Four-Platter), which registered a 139 MB/s read speed and 135 MB/s writes at 5900 RPM. The Seagate Barracuda ST3000DM001 (three-platter) and Seagate Barracuda XT ST33000651AS (five-platter) each performed faster, as a direct result of their 7200 RPM platter rotations.

Seagate Desktop HDD 4TB ST4000DM000 (Four-Platter)

Seagate Barracuda 3TB HDD ST3000DM001 (Three-Platter)

Seagate Barracuda XT 3TB HDD ST33000651AS (Five-Platter)

In the next section, Benchmark Reviews tests transfer rates using ATTO Disk Benchmark.

Comments

I have a WHS 2011 with three 3TB Seagate Barracuda drives and two 2TB drives. I'm tempted to go with four 4TB drives, but that hit in performance is troubling. Although in reality I don't think I'll notice. Just wish it were 7200RPM and I wouldn't think twice. Can't believe there's no more comments, but thanks for the thorough review and comparison with 3TB drives!

"Does it bother you that the 4TB Seagate Desktop HDD is a 5900 RPM hard drive?"For what I want Yes, I'd have preferred 7,200. So am likely to look at other drives.

However if I was building an Online backup or Media store, then this drives might even be preferable. But 5,900 RPM typically means less heat & less power. The Perf drop is not that much, ~10%. So these would be fine as a target for backups or media (movies & music). OR they could also be balanced by SSD Drives. So you'd put your IO Intensive apps on the SSD & have them write their log files, diagnostic & audit output to these 4TB drives.

If you don't have or plan on having a 256++GB SSD, go get your performance oriented, loud and power-consuming HDD! And upload your Windows XP and "Ace Of Base" albums while you're at it!

This HDD caters to the modern user. 4x 1TB platters seals the deal even more. Pair this with a 960GB Crucial M5 if you can and sleep on it.

2 year warranty is also a logical and acceptable compromise, as long as you are using this HDD for what it is supposed to be used for, non-intensive, non-exe files. The stress and speed of executing files, writing, reading becomes irrelevant.

If I have to find a negative, it would be when I install this HDD and shift my file library to it. That's probably going to take a longer time but it's a one-time thing.

@LuayNot sure where your head is at &/or who you are trying to abuse. But I expect many are professional IT folks who read these reviews. They want more than a 2 disk home gaming system. eg: Developers running very large virtual machines, perhaps with huge databases. Maybe emulating a an entire datacentre on a single dev workstation. Perhaps Graphic Designers who work on big animations. They use an entire SSD just to cache their active project. These sorts of folks often have 4-8 disks in their "Home Server / Dev workstation." And rarely do they want to afford the cost of 10TB's of SSD's. Hence the need to balance &/or run NAS storage. For them moving TB's of files is not a "one time thing"

Thanks for the clarification (& the abuse).Over the years I've recommended the purchase of many 100's of enterprise class drives. Typically we only put them in servers. They cost more, if they aren't kept cool in an air-conditioned room can have a similar failure rate to the cheaper drives. So for developer workstations & technical home / demo systems, they get these style consumer drives.Actually, These data centre folks, read all reviews. Thanks for your thoughts.

> Does it bother you that the 4TB Seagate Desktop HDD is a 5900 RPM hard drive?

Quite the opposite - it's a selling point. I have two Hitachi Deskstar 7K4000 4TB and I am disappointed with how hot and noisy they run. The lower RPM Seagate looks perfect.

Speed is a non-issue when we're talking about HDD's - they are all slow, and it is a moot point whether one is "less slow" than the other. The price of 4TB is such that your typical buyers will be higher end, non-budget, users who can afford SSD's. I will not compromise by using HDD's - you get the right tools for your requirements, and for speed, one goes with SSD.

What I need in my HDD's is quiet, low power "large capacity" active storage, in a relatively compact package, to accompay my fast SSD's.

I am someone who bought a box of these drives and then returned them once I tested a couple of them - due mostly to slow access times and low throughput, also I felt like it had been implied that they were 7,200 rpm drives like the ST3000DM000. I can't put drives in my customers machines that are slower than the drives they already have. Most of my people are working with large volumes of small files - lots of almost random I/O. If they had been marketed as 5,900 rpm drives I would not have bought them in the first place.

I am now putting Hitachi 7k4000's in most of my customer machines, with Constellation ES.3 or WD RE 4tb drives as an upgrade - these are for desktop machines with 4+ rotating drives and typically a 256gb SSD - which seems like a waste of money, but it appears to be the only way to get high capacity combined with reasonable access time.

Maybe the new WD SE series will be the way to go.

I am really disappointed that the 4TB Barracuda XT never seemed to appear other than in external drives destined for failure (with the access times crippled and no ventilation).